Robbed Hit of the Week 7-9-12 - Ashford & Simpson's "Street Corner"...

Ashford & Simpson - "Street Corner"

from the album Street Opera (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #56

This week's "robbed hit" is by the legendary songwriting duo and R&B singers Ashford and Simpson. Husband and wife Nick and Angela started out in the 60s writing classic Motown songs such as "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing Baby", "California Soul", and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". As the 70s progressed, the duo also started recording their own albums, and their first LP produced their first minor pop chart hit, "I'd Know You Anywhere", which also made the R&B top-40. As disco became more popular, they experimented with more dance rhythms, and scored a top-10 dance hit in 1976 with "One More Try".

As R&B radio caught up with the disco craze, Ashford & Simpsons own work really caught on fire, with their first top-10 hit in 1978, "Don't Cost You Nothing". Their biggest hit of that time was "Found A Cure", which not only was a #2 R&B hit, it topped the dance club charts and became their first pop top-40 single.

"Street Corner" was from their 1982 LP Street Opera, which was a concept album that featured a suite on the second side of the album. "Corner" was part of that suite, edited to stand alone as a radio track. The premise of the album was love in the dirty and dangerous city streets, and Nick and Angela had their best "scared" faces on for the video clip...

The song peaked at #9 on the R&B radio list, and just missed the top-10 on the dance chart, but only managed at peak in the lower half of the pop chart. And while the album was a top-5 success in R&B oriented stores, it missed the top-40 albums list. It's a shame, because it's one of their more melodic and socially relevant songs of the period. They would make up for that, though, two years later, with their biggest hit to date, "Solid".

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In 1998, model/singer Tyrese Gibson sampled the song on his "You Get Yours" track from his debut album...

and last year, Queens rapper Nutso redid the song as a hip-hop track (NSFW)...

Next up tomorrow: the "chart sweeps" of the French and German music scene...